Happy Saturday night! Welcome to a special tribute edition of Wankers of the Week. This week, we pay tribute to an intelligent whackjob who said a number of interesting and quotable things. If only all the world’s whackjobs could be so worthwhile and entertaining. Alas, it’s up to me to MAKE them so, so here we go, with a little help from my friends, and occasional interjections from our late lamented honoree…

1. Tony Fucking Clement. No, he’s not REALLY a hero, as he did NOT pluck a woman out of a raging current. He stupidly jumped in fully clothed after her before she, wisely, decided to back-float until her real rescuers–Clement’s wife and father-in-law–threw her a lifejacket and hauled her in with a rope. Tony’s a wanker for trying to take the credit here.

2. James Fucking Jones. I’ve already listed Adrian Fucking Lamo, now see if you can spot the wank here in the last paragraph:

Meanwhile, military leaders far higher up the chain of command are contending with the fallout from Sunday’s massive document dump. National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones released a statement reaffirming the White House’s determination to stay the course in Afghanistan and Pakistan: “The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security. WikiLeaks made no effort to contact us about these documents — the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted. These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people.”

Seen it yet?

Actually, there are several wanks embedded here: “Could put the lives…at risk”–like going to war in a place they have no business being hasn’t done so already? Please. How can they be any more at risk than they are already? “Could threaten our national security”–US generals have a nasty ingrained habit of saying that about everything. They said it, I’m sure, when the Bonus Army marched on Washington to claim their unpaid bonuses for fighting World War I. “Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents”–as though it were Julian Assange & Co.’s job to say “Mother, may I?” Why do you think they call themselves Wikileaks? (Strangely absent from this “national security” discourse: Any criticism of Assange and friends for “leaking” the supposed contents of Raúl Reyes’ “magic laptop”, which mysteriously survived a Colombian army bombing in the jungles of Ecuador. Colombia had help from Washington, remember.) And the crowning wank of all, which I’m sure must have made him jizz in his pants: “These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment…” …to keep fighting a war that they had no business even starting. That was the whole point of the leak, as Bradley Manning himself has said–to compel an end to this stupid war. Only a pluperfect wanker would be committed to continuing what should never have been started in the first place.

3. Ron Fucking Ramsey. Sez Islam is “a cult”. What church doe HE attend, again? Guaranfuckingtee you it comes up “cult” on the Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame.

4. Zachary Fucking Chesser. Well, at least now we know whom to blame for that Draw Mohammed Day bullshit and other meaningless exercises in pretend free speech. Thanks a lot, asshole.

5. Vera Fucking Kobalia. A privileged oligarch getting unearned privileges (that is, MORE of them than she already enjoyed) from a tie-eating wanker (also of unearned privilege) from Tblisi–after meeting him at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver? Color me so shocked. And pissed off, too, that this spoiled foreign bimbo gets to spend her “college” years dancing on tables in nightclubs, with buckets of champagne at her feet, while so many of us common plebes, myself included, did NOT party our educations away in designer dresses but kept our noses to the grindstone, and all for nothing.This is the “democracy” the media told us to clap for? Rose Revolution, my ASS.

8. Ian Fucking Mulgrew. Most. Ignorant. Fucking. Wingnut. Columnist. EVER. Yeah, corporations collecting and selling our personal data is a GREAT idea. Shoot, who needs an impartial agency like StatsCan collating anonymous data on the populace at large and making it available to researchers who actually serve the public good, when you can have people trying to sell you crap you neither want nor need, based solely on your “demographic”–and whatever hackers can glean off of FACEBOOK? I mean shit, what’s a public good, anyway? Privatize the fuck out of everything–why should the Third World have all the fun?

9. Christopher Fucking Stone. The fact that this obvious douchebag made it as far as USC law school is absurd enough, but he claims he did it on the basis of his obviously hinky (and I suspect, owing to their rapey content, highly illegal) porn sites. Doesn’t say much for USC if it’s true. And if he does manage to make it as far as the bar exam, let alone passing it, all those jokes about sharks not biting lawyers out of professional courtesy might find a whole new basis in fact.

10. Ann Fucking Coulter. Her smile is starting to look a little photoshopped; they had to get rid of that rabies-froth around her mouth somehow. Now, if only they would do the humane thing and take her to the vet to be put to sleep. Obviously the poor bitch is in misery, because nothing she says is making even a subatomic particle of sense anymore. Did no one at Subhuman Events Onwhine get the message that rabies is a disease of the central nervous system, and that it is incurable and fatal? Clearly none of those jackanapes have had THEIR shots, either. Put ’em all down, I say.

11. Baruch Fucking Marzel. Going too far? Yeah, I should say so. Telling others whom to marry (or not) is creepy enough (and what does it concern HIM, anyway?), but calling for the murder of Israeli peace leader Uri Avnery is just plain criminal. Why is this man not behind bars yet?

12. Phylis Fucking Schlafly. Why has this dinosaur not gone extinct yet? Has she, like the Coultergeist, discovered the secret to surviving with a bad case of rabies-induced brain rot? Or she just an embalmed corpse with an embedded tape recorder, playing tinny recorded messages to the world? Either way, this one’s past her expiry date too.

13. Mike Fucking Duffy. A conflict of interests? Say it ain’t so. The question is, when will Puffy’s family loyalty (never to mention good sense, because he frankly hasn’t got any) finally overcome his creepy attachment to partisan ideology? Because in the case of the Incompetent RCMP Commissioner, something’s gotta give in the end…

14. Glenn Fucking Beck. Yeah, he’s going straight to hell. Love of money really IS the root of all evil. And if you wonder how he managed to rake so much of it in when his advertisers are dropping him all over the place, wonder no more. His biggest one is the one he’s still relentlessly shilling for by talking up Goldline–and a lot of revisionist history. I just pity the fools who fell for this barely-legal scam.

15. Robert Fucking Pickton. The only new trial he’s going to get is for any additional victims the police may uncover. In any event, I doubt he will ever be found innocent. A guy who is best known for feeding chopped-up women to pigs is just not gonna stand a snowball’s chance. Funny dat.

16. Terry Fucking Jones. Anyone who says “Islam is of the Devil” (and has written a book by that title!) is not credible when he claims to have “nothing against Muslims”. Dude, you’re advocating the burning of their holy books. If that’s not something against them, what is? Can you not just smell the brimstone of your own hypocrisy? Well, maybe I should get together a group of my pagan friends and come burn down your church, then tell you it’s nothing against you, we just think your religion is of the devil. Would you like that?

17. Leah Fucking Durant. What the hell is a black progressive woman doing in bed with white supremacists? Oh, I see–it’s called “immigration reform”. Immigration deformation is more like it. How can she have failed to do her homework on these co-opting weasels? Suddenly, I see where that saying about what the road to hell is paved with came from.

18. Andrew Fucking Breitbart. Yeah, I’ll just bet that was hard for you, asshole. Hard to take time out from drinking to make racist shit up and smear an innocent, hard-working government employee who saved a white man’s farm whether he was initially polite to her or not. You want to speak to Shirley Sherrod in private? Fine. You can do so after apologizing in public. PROFUSELY. And quitting your hackwork and getting an HONEST job for a change. Can you do that?

19. Edward Fucking Davenport. With a moat full of cognac so big “you could row across it”, you could get drunk as a lord, all right. Too bad the neighbors don’t care for this professional “lord” brown-noser and the noise his star-studded parties generate.

20. Rob Fucking Anders. That’s right, point the finger at China and ignore the real elephants in Canada’s living room: Israel, and the US.

21. Brian Fucking Sandoval. Why does this word “apátrido” keep worming its way into my head, and whatever could it mean? And these other two words, too: “racist” and “hypocrite”.

23. Mike Fucking Mullen. Oh yeah, the Taliban are all scouring Wikileaks for current information on people to kill. As if their own eyes and ears in the field weren’t quite up to the job. Who believes this hokum, seriously? If you really care about soldiers dying in Afghanistan, the solution is simple and doesn’t involve censorship; it involves ENDING THE DAMN WAR.

24. Richard Fucking Stengel. Talk about defending the indefensible: A grossly exploitive picture of an Afghan woman with only half her nose is being touted as “what happens when we leave Afghanistan”. And TIME’s managing editor seems to sincerely believe that is the case. Only problem is, it happened while “we” were IN Afghanistan. And it undoubtedly happened BECAUSE “we” were in Afghanistan. Remember, the Taliban are the mutant form of the mujahideen promoted by Reagan (and financed and trained by the CIA) in the 1980s to get the “godless communist” Russians out of Afghanistan. How do you like your Vietnam now, USA?

25. Raymond Fucking Learsy. Actually, that oil cutoff Chavecito is “threatening” won’t happen, IF the US stops interfering politically in Venezuela and starts doing business honestly with him for a change. Therefore, that’s not “foolish” on his part, it’s damn smart of him to serve his would-be overlords due notice. What’s foolish is expecting him to go on tolerating the State Dept.’s nonsense indefinitely, or hoping that the opposition (a bunch of spoiled, corrupt, charmless assclowns with not one whole working brain divided among them) will somehow prove capable of winning against him democratically, or succeeding in a coup. So far they’ve done nothing of the sort. Nor will they ever, as long as he’s around–and even if he’s NOT around, they still won’t succeed at anything other than toadying to foreign empires. Which is exactly what the grand majority of the Venezuelan people DO NOT WANT. Who’s the fool? Learsy, and whoever’s paying him to write crapaganda defaming an elected and justly popular leader. Hey Learsy, remember the winter of 2002-3? Obviously you don’t, but Venezuelans do. That’s when the oil industry was paralyzed by the corruptos toadying to the US within it. Venezuelans didn’t exactly eat rocks then, but they did tighten their belts and bunker down. Who caved? The merchant class, not the common folk. Meanwhile, the crooks who locked the rank-and-file oil workers out of their jobs were dismissed for dereliction of duty, and retired managers stepped in to take their place and get the oil flowing again. The best weapon the US had against Venezuela–its stranglehold on the oil industry–FAILED! What makes you think it’s gonna be any different if Chavecito decides to stop selling to you because you keep trying to kill him? He’s got other economic heavyweight customers lined up and deals already signed–with India, China, Japan, etc. It’s not as if he’ll miss your greenbacks all THAT much. You think the US is the only game in town? The more fool you. So you can stop threatening him with economic ruin; Chavecito knows you ain’t all that. (And so do the many commenters taking you to task below your stupid hit-piece, happily.)

26. Werner Fucking Patels. Wow, who knew that an empty barrel could make so much goddamned noise? (Check out the banner at the top of his page if you don’t believe me. Self-important much?)

27. and 28. Lucy Fucking Viner-Mood and Lois Fucking Gibson. Shouldn’t you be torturing the guy who had sex with your friend, not your friend for having sex with him? With friends like you, the women of the world sure don’t need any more enemies.

29. The Fucking ADL. They started out with a decent-enough purpose–protecting Jews from the bigotry of others. Now they’re apparently nothing more than a crapaganda organ, churning out the same old hateful music as the Palinesque fundies of the Religious Reich, only minus the Christ. If they were truly against defamation, wouldn’t they refrain from doing it themselves? It’s worth noting that the Jewish Community Centre of New York, the United Jewish Federation, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Jewish himself, obviously) and 250 9-11 victims’ families all support the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” that the ADL is at such pains to call “painful to some”.

30. Oh yeah, and lest we forget Sarah Fucking Palin–fascism has come not only carrying the cross and wrapped in the flag, but all blinged out in it. Literally.

And finally, on a personal note, to “Jamie”, who chose last week’s wankapedia to out himself as what he is: Nice job, dude. Saved me the icky slimy work of having to winkle you out. Would that all wingnuts were so co-operative.

Oh dear. Panorama reports a story that will have a lot of faces red in La Paz:

The Aymara priest who four years ago blessed and handed over an indigenous ceremonial staff of office to the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, thus winning international fame, was arrested for possession of 240 kilograms of cocaine, according to police on Thursday.

The detention of the “amauta”, or Andean wise man, Valentín Mejillones, along with his son and a Colombian couple, took place on Tuesday, said the director of the Bolivian Special Force Against Narcotrafficking (FELCN), Colonel Félix Molina.

Vice-president Alvaro García said that there would be no official protection for Mejillones, who, according to him, had not been chosen by Morales himself for the indigenous inauguation ceremony, but by “the internal organizing structure of the Andean religious community”.

The anti-drug director said that the cocaine confiscated from the amauta’s house in El Alto was in liquid form, and is valued at over $240,000 US on the Bolivian market.

He also said that in Mejillones’ home there was a cocaine-purification laboratory “with Colombian technology”, but the amauta claimed he had been “tricked” by the Colombians.

“I had nothing to do with it, I did them a favor as a human being, they told me they would make herbal pills and creams,” said the amauta, according to the local news agency Fides.

Translation mine.

The Achacachi Post, reporting in English, puts the total drug haul (and its street value in Bolivia) a bit higher, at 350 kg and over $300,000 US. It’s hard to say precisely how much coke was in the house if it’s still in liquid form; a chemist might be able to give an approximate figure, based on the concentration of the solution, but until the powder is precipitated out, the amount can vary.

Still, great job on the part of the Bolivian FELCN catching such a large haul; before Evo and his reforms, it’s unlikely that the local police, working with the DEA, would have had nearly such a great success. The DEA is the worst drug-smuggler there is, after the CIA.

I suspect that the Colombian couple, unnamed in the Panorama piece I translated, will indeed prove to be ringleaders; I hope Mejillones is telling the truth when he claims he was deceived. It would be a dreadful thing for the Aymara, who are justly proud of Evo and his leadership, if things turned out otherwise.

Hidey-ho, folks, it’s another G-20 roundup for ya. And here comes Ms. Manx with all the linkies you should clicky…

First up, the Toronto Star‘s Carol Goar draws up a score sheet for what’s been done and what’s still doing. Surprise: So far, not a single person arrested has actually had criminal charges laid that stuck. One month later, and it’s Protesters 1, Cops 0. Goar’s moment of untruth: “Peaceful advocacy groups tarnished their reputation by knowingly providing cover to protestors bent on violence.” Carol, shame on you–the cops were not a peaceful advocacy group! I seem to recall at least one video where the peaceful advocacy groups were chastising the vandals. Is that what you call “knowingly providing cover”?

The Star and the Globe are both reporting that environmentalist Dave Vasey, one of the more prominent arrestees (he was singled out early on as a “leader”), has gone to court, only to find the charges against him not even on the docket. Maybe because the “five-metre rule” he was charged under was bogus? Or maybe just because the cops had nothing on him, and they knew it. Their purpose in making the arrest was not to lay charges, but strictly to intimidate Vasey and others (whom they presumed to be his “followers”, no doubt), and thus curtail protest. As always, the operative question to be asked in cases like this is Cui bono?–for whose benefit?

That question is certainly topmost in my mind when it comes to this case, of a young Muslim woman being forcibly stripped of her headscarf and sweater. Violation of modesty is a specifically intimidating move when the victim is a Muslim. Was this violation of her person done to discourage her from protesting? It sure smells that way.

And you know things have come to a bad pass when a distinguished scientist and former holocaust survivor like Ursula Franklin looks at the G-20 fiasco and draws inescapable parallels to the fascist ordeal of her youth.

“The tongue as temple of pleasure”. I shit you not, that’s what the headline says. Do you want to read the whole thing, in Spanish? Or shall I just spare you that unsafe-for-work stuff?

Yes, it’s Chavecito’s birthday today, and the laughs and hate from the oppo whore media just keep on rolling, no matter what day it is. From Venezuelan prog-blogger Okrim, who dug the above jewel out a few days ago, I bring you…convulsions:

The obsession many opponents have with President Chávez is endlessly amazing. If you comment on anything to do with international politics, they compare this event with Chávez, even a suicide attack in a country where the average escuálido has never heard anything from before (such as one in eastern Germany). If you talk about how bad the weather is, they think of Chávez, and how “bad” the entire country is. If you talk about your last vacation, they say they didn’t enjoy theirs because of Chávez (even if they just got back from a Mediterranean cruise). But I confess I’ve never found such a twisted example of obsession than the one I’m about to share with you.

On the ground floor of my apartment building, I found several pages of El Nacional the other day, and idly picked one up to read it. The article was about sex, particularly cunnilingus, that is, oral sex performed on a woman. I read it unawares, thinking–oh, in vain–that I would find none of the classic dissociated editorial line of Miguel Henrique Otero. I was wrong. After a series of explanations of the sexual practice in question, in which the use of the tongue is indispensable, I found the following pearl of wisdom:

“True, there are those who use their tongues to insult, and talk a mile a minute in cadenas [televised presidential speeches, required by Venezuelan law to be broadcast on all channels] but the most privileged know that the tongue represents […] an infallible instrument to offer and achieve pleasure.”

WTF? What level of dissociated obsession must a person have when talking about sex in the context of televised speeches by President Chávez? You can be sure that the most Chavista woman in the world isn’t thinking of Chávez when the topic of conversation is oral sex. So what strange psychological mechanism is at work in some opposition sexologist mentioning the president in an article on oral sex? Fixation? Obsession? Persecution mania? Common, garden-variety craziness? All of the above?

The strange thing is, this sort of conduct is common in many oppositionists in the most diverse circumstances. They live thinking of the President: on the way to work, at work, at lunch, on the way home, at home, alone, with family, on vacation, and probably–though it’s difficult to prove–even in a coma.

I understand them at the bottom of it all, poor bastards. If I thought about the President in each and every instant of my life, at all occasions and moments, in the face of any comment or situation, the way they do, I would surely hate him too.

Translated, in its entirety, by Your Humble One.

Yow. I know Chavecito is a sexy stud (and so do lots of other women, believe you me), and that his mouth is undoubtedly his handsomest (and most active) feature, but this obsession of his enemies with his tongue is just killingly funny. Even in bed, they just can’t get him out of their heads! What must their sex lives be like, I shudder to ask?

Okrim is right…I’m the most Chavista woman in my hometown, maybe in Canada, maybe even all of North America, and even I don’t think about it that way, at least not by daylight.* Most of the time, when I think about Chavecito’s mouth, I think what hilarious truths have come out of it. He has no qualms making fun of his enemies, or denouncing them either. And he does it with wit and comic flair, which is in itself very sexy. He’s not afraid to get a little goofy; that’s an appealing trait, and no doubt explains a lot of his common touch. He can get along with anyone, and he can make anyone laugh–except maybe those obsessive oppos, who all walk around looking like a chronic case of indigestion, and little wonder.

When I picture myself meeting him, I imagine we’d have a helluva good conversation, in which he ignores my stumbling Spanish and I politely correct his restaurant English (that’s what I call it when someone speaks just enough of a language to be able to order a meal.) And of course, I imagine laughter. Lots and lots of laughter. Laughter is a great icebreaker. And it’s also a great leveller. I certainly don’t think of him as a tyrant; actually, I think of him as someone you could have a beer with, unlike Dubya (who is a dry drunk, and in any case, if you don’t belong to his grandparents’ country club, you will never have so much as a glass of Coke with him.)

Yeah, I guess you could say that’s the secret of Chavecito’s sexiness right there. Women actually LIKE him, as a person, because he likes them–and everyone else, too, unless they give him solid reasons not to. Like, say, Dubya and that failed coup eight years ago, for example.

Liking and likability are two things the oppos don’t have much of, if they have them at all (I’ve never seen any evidence that they did); hence their constant exercising of the bile ducts. Even when the topic is tongue-sex technique, somehow they figure out a way to work their hateful obsession with a capable, likable leader in there! Clearly their mothers never taught them that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar and gall. That’s why I doubt that even a clear, detailed explanation of how to go down on your lady is going to help them much. Either you have it, or you don’t, but you can’t pick it up from reading a trashy newspaper article. Technique is just no substitute for a certain je ne sais quoi, y’know?

So, Chavecito, happy birthday…I can’t give you anything more than my warmest greetings, but that’s okay. You already have everything you need anyway. And those who have too much of all the wrong things and too little of the good stuff, well…they’ll just go on eternally hating your guts for it.

Poor devils.

*I will confess to having had the odd naughty dream about him, though. And Rafael Correa and Evo, too, although not all in one go. I’m not that greedy!

‎”Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”

The Torygraph dutifully printed the above photo in 2009, but are the major media really getting the message? A few small items give me hope that a little of the truth IS finally starting to filter through:

The Toronto Star prints Dave Coles’s analysis of what “went wrong” at the Toronto summit. The union leader comes to the same conclusions as I’ve drawn on a number of occasions:

There is strong circumstantial evidence that, faced with a public relations defeat over the cost of the two summits, high-ranking members of the government and police orchestrated a clandestine security operation. The operation was orchestrated to inflame the public imagination against all protesters. Strategically, it was designed to justify what is still truly unjustifiable — $1 billion on security.

[…]

The dominant image emerging from the summit is of a black-clothed “protester” smashing windows, and an apocalyptic image of a burning police cruiser. Those images had their desired effect. Opinion polls now show most people support police actions, in light of the demonstrator violence.

What if the Saturday rampage was allowed to happen? These are serious questions, and need a public inquiry to answer them.

Look at the evidence. Police sources told the Toronto Sun that they were ordered to stand down, and let the rampage unfold on Saturday. Officers standing down throughout the streets of the downtown were vividly captured on video.

Video evidence shows a “demonstrator” trashing two Toronto police cars. He is wearing the same thick-soled boots as those of the police riot squads standing down, and watching, a block away. All the boots bear the same yellow logo. We unmasked three police agents provocateurs at Montebello by noticing that the trio were wearing the exact same military-issue boots as uniformed police. The old saw is: If something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. This “demonstrator” looks like a cop, right up to his buzz cut. He has everything but an earpiece.

If that sounds a bit familiar, you’ve probably seen it here before. Dave Coles is one of the legitimate protesters (along with Maude Barlow and a number of actual anarchists) who unmasked the Montebello provocateurs in this prior entry of mine. And he’s also facing an uphill battle in the inquiry into that incident, according to the Montreal Gazette:

Lawyers for Quebec’s provincial police tried Monday to block a protester from participating at a police ethics commission investigation into the behaviour of three undercover officers at a 2007 demonstration.

Allowing third parties to intervene would add to the cost and make the process more complicated and inefficient, Andre Fiset told police ethics commissioner Richard Iuticone.

“Who knows how many days it would go on?”

Fiset and two other lawyers argued that Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, should not be given standing in the complaint against the three Surete du Quebec officers, who posed as protesters at the North American leaders’ summit in Montebello, Que.

Such designation would allow him to cross-examine and subpoena witnesses and submit evidence at the hearing against sergeants Jean-Francois Boucher, Joey Laflamme and Patrick Tremblay.

Well, at least now we know the names of the three burly phonies (one of whom had a rock in his hand, indicating an attempt at violent provocation) who couldn’t fool a real anarchist OR a real unionist.

Obviously, time is not the issue here, and neither is cost or complexity; the real issue is the use of police provocateurs, which is illegal in Canada, but apparently is not supposed to be an issue. That’s why the cops’ lawyers are not eager to have Dave Coles question their clients on the stand. They know the cops would lose.

As it stands, the “normal” process is sorely lacking in fairness and thoroughness both:

Coles later submitted a complaint to the police ethics committee, which was rejected, although the commissioner acknowledged that one or more of the sergeants verbally abused and shoved the man, repeatedly refused to identify themselves and refused to put down a rock when asked to do so. But the commissioner said that under the circumstances, the behaviour was justified.

Coles asked that the committee revise its decision, which it did, and ordered the same commissioner who rejected the original complaint to proceed against the three officers.

“This raises serious doubts about the commissioner’s ability to seek out evidence and conduct cross-examination that may show that his previous conclusions about the facts of this matter were ill-founded and wrong,” says the motion submitted by lawyer Mike Cohen, who is representing Coles.

“Any reasonable person would find this very bizarre,” he added Monday in an interview.

He says it “makes no sense” that the same commissioner who refused to cite the officers is now required to proceed against them. “We argue that there are provisions in the law for the committee to allow a third party to intervene.”

Obviously, the police can’t police themselves. And their commissioner didn’t want to; it took a protest from Dave Coles to get his decision reversed. And the law guarantees him standing–something the police ethics commission didn’t want to grant him. No doubt because it has much to hide. One wonders why–they themselves admitted shortly after the 2007 incident that yes, they HAD used infiltrators!

And yes, those infiltrators are the three burly men in the video, who are now named as violators of law. When the police break the law rather than upholding it, then use an ethics commission (conveniently, convened by themselves) to try to cover their own tracks, well…draw your own conclusions, gentle reader. I would humbly submit that they’ve just totally undermined their own authority as enforcers of the law, and that their credibility is shot to hell.

That commitment of purpose and the long-standing relationships belie a common view of the G20 demonstrators as hobbyists or kids out to smash some windows. Yet a glance at Canada’s increasingly militant left shows that, far from being driven by socially isolated ideologues or rampaging teens, it is composed of sturdy networks of committed, methodical people organized into “affinity groups”–small, intensely democratic collectives that reject words like “leader” and “organizer,” and insist that executive positions are transient if they exist at all. Such groups can move quickly and fluidly, both during mobilizations on staging grounds like the G20, and more routinely in their communities.

The first page of that piece (which is infinitely better than the second, where the hunt for an imaginary pathology begins) also highlights the fact that “squatter” activists actually took care of the va
cant building they occupied, which was not ruined until police broke a window and chucked a can of tear gas in. Once again, it begs the question: Who are the real villains here, the cops or the anarchists?

Finally, let’s hope Alex Hundert is right when he says the people are waking up. The first thing needed, always always ALWAYS, is a change of consciousness.

Fear doesn't travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory's truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next.
--Arthur Miller, "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'", The New Yorker, October 21, 1996

All opinions here are the brain-wrackings of Sabina C. Becker, unless otherwise credited. If you cite them, please give credit where due.